Lorena Basoa Pena

You look around and it seems like everything is a mess.

A stage for your life unfolds like a red carpet as you move forward.

Like a flea market full of odds and ends that catches your eye.

Rhythmic music lulls you to sleep. It numbs your being.

I have to... I have to...

Merchants entice you, promising a better life—younger, healthier, more, more, more.

They sell better versions—a secure future.

How many spotlights seem to illuminate this scene, all aimed at one another, each wanting to shine brighter, better, longer—before you do, today, tomorrow, 10 years from now.

I turn on slow motion.

I stop, I look around, I listen.

I'm letting myself go.

Be part of the scene.

I am part of it.

I walk toward you; I see your bright light, and mine too.

I look into your eyes, I enter your eyes, I join you in looking at us.

I can see your skin prickling just like mine; I see your heartbeat, your confusion, your fear.

Just like mine.

I keep watching the show go on around me, but here we are, you and me.

Who are you, and who am I?

The presence of feeling ourselves despite … or including everything that seems to be “more.”

Being present in the moment as the show goes on  

Everything moves and spirals.

I can't take my eyes off this.

I look at the rope to figure out how to place my feet so I don't fall.

I resist, I get scared, I tense up as if I could hold myself back.

To condense myself into a single piece.

My mind comes up with strategies so I can move forward.

I spread my arms to bring my self—my two parts—into balance.

I feel like a bridge.

I feel the weight, the air flowing through my fingers, the way it ruffles my hair up there.

I feel the urge to let myself go and stop resisting.

So I pull my arms toward me and wrap them around myself—so tightly!—that I become a whole “ME.”

I close my eyes and stop looking outside; I let my weight fall backward.

And so I plunge into that liberating void—one so full of nothing and so empty of everything.

My mind waits for the impact so I can find the end and stop suffering… but it never comes.

As I keep falling, I open my eyes and can see everything I'm leaving behind

 And the further I fall, the smaller that image gets.

My skin recognizes a gentle caress, a whisper in my ear, an embrace that holds it all together.

Thousands of nebulae of light and heat surround me.

It's not easy to explain when you can't see with your eyes.